The UofM / Dell / Everywhere Girl is now in Brazil:
http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=26583

I just got off the phone with BC CASA. I called and asked if I could get their materials in French. They said they do not publish anything in French. I asked them if they had published anything in French in the past, they have not. Asked if they were planning to, the lady I spoke to was not sure.
Asked if they were a member of the Canadian Federation of Students
They are NOT
Asked if they sent any money to CFS
They have NOT
Asked what languages they work in….. they said they print most everything in two languages.
English and SPANISH…..
I got the Spanish Translation of BC Central American Student Alliance
It is
Alianza de
Estudiantes de
Centroamencanos
So if I was going to register a bunch of domain names for this group I would also be registering

http://www.casa-aec.ca

I just check CIRA for the Spanish name and it is not registered by CFS:

So what is going on….?
I just got off the phone with Ken Marciniec. He did not know this was the reason for purchasing the domain and directed me to talk to Philip Link. (On a side note, Mr. Marciniec was polite).
Mr. Link was polite as well and I had an interesting discussion with him about CFS Services. He was unable to give me any more details and said he was getting someone to call me to clarify what is going on.
He did state there is a group of CFS students in BC who want to form a Central America Students Alliance and there is potential that this is the a misunderstanding and that this CFS group did not know about this BC group.
I am awaiting CFS’s response and we will see what they say.
So what is going on here?…. looks like cybersquating, sounds like cybersquating
looks like a duck, quacks like a duck, it must be a duck eh!

From the Manitoban:

However, according to Philip Link, executive director for CFS services, the ownership is entirely benign: CFS has a subsidiary organization, now defunct, known as the BC Central America Student Alliance (BC CASA), on whose behalf the url is registered.

Give the CFS some credit for being creative…. it is one of the better political B.S. lines that I have heard for awhile.
Yeah, your CFS Ontario Executive Member is going out and registering a domain name for a group in BC…..

I am in my lecture right now and barely staying awake….
oh wait notes… yeah….
I will be able to type and stay awake that way!

It is 230 in the morning, I am at Tim Hortons. I have been here since 1220 writing and responding to emails. Man how I missed the active student life over the summer!

In my readings today, I came across this article in the Kingston Whig-Standard.
Basically, Homecoming at Queens got out of control and people (including Queen’s students) pelted police with beer bottle, overturned a car, and basically became an out of control mob. Digusting.
http://www.thewhig.com/webapp/sitepages/content.asp?contentid=127091&catname=Local+News&classif=News+Alert

On my way out to referee this morning so not much of an entry right now, but this is an interesting read.
http://www.dundasstarnews.com/NASApp/cs/ContentServer?pagename=brabant/Layout/Article&c=Article&cid=1127425820227&call_pageid=1069851996007&col=1073476868082

I spoke with the UMSU VP tonight. The research position has been removed as part of the restructuring of UMSU
and Council was made aware of it. Council had many closed door sessions during the summer.
As it is a personal matter and I am not a member of Council, that is all the information I have and I understand the nature of the process is that I cannot have more. Since I have not heard any complaints from members of UMSU Council, I must assume that all is in order. I continue to believe that the position was good but I am not privy to all the information that the UMSU Councillors are, and as such, I cannot come to any further conclusion and my early statement was not as informed as I prefer to be before posting. I try to hold myself to a high standard and I failed to meet that standard. This is not at all a result of the UMSU VP telling me not to post what I did, it is a reflection of poor research on my part.
Ms. Aziz (the UMSU President) has brought up the issue of the bad-faith (against CIRA policy and opening CFS and its members to potential liability) registration by the CFS of casa-acae.ca. She plans to bring it up at the next National Executive meeting of the CFS.
Since CFS owns the domain till 2007, the proper act by CFS is to transfer ownership to CASA of the domain. CFS is wrong here and they need to act to correct their poor decision.

I did post about an hour thirty minutes ago about the UMSU Research Position being vacant. As I do not have the full story at the present time, I have removed my previous post and will talk with the UMSU executive before coming to a conclusion. When I blog, sometimes I allow my initial impressions to guide me and sometimes they are wrong.

While, I am not proud to be a student today (I would be even more proud if I was a CFS lover) because instead of fighting for students, CFS has decided their priority is to fight CASA. Good Job CFS and yet CFS wants $265,000 plus a year from University of Manitoba Student to add to the over ten million dollars CFS is getting from students already?
Anyway, according to The Paulinian, CFS has stolen “registered” (CFS has some legimate concerns with the word stolen because they did not actually steal it, they just merely broke the rules in doing so. As we all no, stealing and breaking the rules are different and this may make the CFS feel better) CASA’s website address: Great job to Dana the editor at the Paulinian for getting this information.
From CIRA:

Domain casa-acae.ca
Registrant Name Canadian Federation of Students
Registrar Internic.ca Corp.
Renewal Date 2007/01/12
Date approved 2005/01/12
Last changed 2005/04/18
Description
Registrar Number 29
Registrant Number 249277
Domain Number 1120917
DNS1
mag2.magmacom.com 206.191.0.140
DNS2
mag1.magmacom.com 206.191.0.210
DNS3
DNS4
DNS5
DNS6
Administrative Contact
Name Ken Marciniec
Job Title
Postal Address Canadian Federation of Students Inc. 170 Metcalfe Street, Suite 500 Ottawa ON K2P1P3 Canada
Phone 4169253825
Fax
Email national@cfsontario.ca
Technical Contact
Name Ken Marciniec
Job Title
Postal Address Canadian Federation of Students Inc. 170 Metcalfe Street, Suite 500 Ottawa ON K2P1P3 Canada
Phone 4169253825
Fax
Email national@cfsontario.ca

BTW, I guess the CFS has not bothered to read the legality (or actually lack of legality) of bad-faith registration of domain names in Canada. Since my site is monitored by the CFS (yes they have made a priority of being ready to attack me as well) I will be kind enough to assist them in finding the legal rules of their immature action: http://www.cira.ca/official-doc/95.policy__final___November_29__2001___en.pdf
Yes, CFS you are breaking the rules (again) but mature behaviour has never been a priority for the CFS.
BTW, the gentleman (Ken Marciniec) behind this sits on the same CFS National Executive as U of M’s own UMSU President Amanda Aziz. This decision by the CFS was taken prior to Ms. Aziz sitting on the CFS National Executive and as such cannot be put onto Ms. Aziz. Yet, a lack of action by Ms. Aziz to get CFS out of this position of legal liability (and by extension UMSU and herself) definitely opens the door to Ms. Aziz being considered part of the decision to engage in this act. Let me be clear, the fact that Ms. Aziz is a supporter of CFS does not make her responsible for this action but she is in a position to correct this action.
For the record, I have no use whatsoever for either CASA or CFS. I believe that both are corporations interested in taking as much money from students as possible to fund their activities and are not responsive to students. This is why I was more than happy to vote in favour of UMSU leaving CASA and opposed UMSU’s involvement with CFS. I do not see the issue as one or the other, I see the issue as both are too expensive, wasteful and ineffective. I do not see any reason for my money to go to them.

I just purchased 10 bus tickets to Guelph at a student discount. It is a great deal. Cash one-way fare is just under $12 dollars. I got 10 tickets for $65, so basically at 50% off. I will be travelling to Guelph again this weekend.
In other news, I am a referee again! I will be doing Flag Football for 13-15 year olds on Monday night. I hope to get back to Basketball in the near future.

I seem to be having a problem with comments. Last night, my server was given a POST command from somebody reading my CFS vs CASA cost entry but I did not get any of the data. I have been unable to figure out what happened. So to that person, I am not censoring your comment, I did not get your comment at all.

The new school year has begun for me. It really started last weekend with the beginning of Welcome Week at McMaster University. There were a few events that I made it out to during the week and they were all very good. I was actually impressed by the events and I may even consider buying a Welcome Week pass next year. Sunday was Carnival day with all kinds of different inflatable games and rock-climbing in the centre of the campus. It was fun, the best part was that I saw many of my friends. Some of whom, I have not seen since high school. Monday was my favourite event, the Inter-Residence Council (IRC) bedraces. Basically, the pedestrian only roads were completely closed off to University vehicles and instead turned into a bed racetrack. It was a very exciting event not so much for the races themselves but for the fun that was occuring along the side of the road. Each residence had their own residence t-shirts and cheer. Everyone was really excited and chants would break out at random. Each faculty also had their own bed to race as well including against the residences. Not to be forgotten, the Society of Off-Campus Students had their own t-shirts and competed against the residence halls as well. There was prizes for the crowd as well. It was very impressive. There were many residence events that I attended and that were all fun. Sure beats the let’s drink in a room events that were my main choice last year. The fact that alcohol is not allowed forces the Inter-Residence Council to organize events that are different. An interesting change as well is that the IRC members are not allowed to drink at all for the first two weeks of school to set a proper example and are not allowed to be intoxiated in residence as they are leaders and McMaster has a very strong policy for student leaders.
There were late-night outdoor movies everynight and a few cool outdoor concerns as well during the week. Another event was the pajama parade. Basically, all the residences go for a parade thru the local area around McMaster University in their pajama’s. Also, SOCS and most faculties participate as well. It is a very slow moving parade and pretty much becomes a long single file line of people snaking around Westdale (The community about 10 minutes walking from campus) meeting all the people along the side of the road watching the parade. It is a major event with 1000′s of people in the parade and 100′s watching and greeting each other. A very good event.
Tuesday morning was rough, I woke up at 5:30am and got to campus at 6:15am. I was the 5th person in the OSAP line to pick up my loan paperwork. I got that done at 930am by which point the line-up was two hours long anyway.
On Wednesday, the main area of campus is filled with tables and Clubsfest occurs. All clubs, faculty associations, councils, service groups, University services, etc… have a table each and present their materials to students. There are over 250 tables at this event.
I, of course, purchased my McMaster Politicial Science Students’ Association (MPSSA) membership for the year and got an “Arts Matter” button from the McMaster Humanities Society table. Does not mean that I am a fan of the Opera or anything all of the sudden…. Arts is more than professional taxpayer subsidized organizations, it is critical thinking, and the liberal arts (English, History, Communication Studies) and amateur art as well. I was convinced to get one of the buttons for that reason, plus I lost a debate to the MHS Secretary as well, so since she won the debate, I am wearing the button. Again not to be confused with the arts that waste taxpayers money such as this play that is costing taxpayers $183,000 and is funded with Health Research dollars. I will be going to a few McMaster student productions and paying to see them during the year because I am in favour of self-substanting arts. Plus I believe that I will truly enjoy them. I do not mind art I just believe that there are not enough taxpayer dollars to go around and, for example, that $183,000 should have been spent on research to find better treatments for ailments that people suffer from instead of research dollars being spent on a threatre production.
The MPSSA General Meeting is tomorrow, should be fun and interesting.
Thursday finally arrived and I started my classes. Labour Studies was straight forward, the Prof got up talked about this is University and how to act then the class was done. I had Social Work on Thursday night. I believe this course is going to go very well for me. I have a good study partner which is going to help alot. I just need to stay on top of things. The McMaster Libraries are open until Midnight all week which helps a lot. Sadly, the computer labs are still on Summer Hours and as such are only 8:30-4:30 operations. Means that I cannot type my work outside of daytime hours. I spent Wednesday and Thursday nights in the Library till midnight studying.
On Tuesday, I begin my Political Science Course: Politics and the Media. It sounds like it will be a tough course for the first bit.
Saturday was an interesting day. I went to Guelph for only the second time since Febuary but the first time this school year. It was really nice to see all my friends up there. I had to take the early morning bus up there from McMaster which meant I was awake at 5:45 in the morning. Made me a hurting unit all day. I went up to fix a friend’s computer and was fairly successful. Then I took her for lunch (I made a mistake early in the week and was trying to get in the good books again) and we were joined by friends. One of them asked me to look at her computer and see what was wrong. I had a bad feeling about that and I was correct. The next eight hours were spent doing everything to it that I could. I was successful and she now has internet. It was somewhat interesting to see how quickly the rumour mill started as this girl and I were the only ones in her house for a while while I was fixing her computer and she is a cute girl so everyone decided to start the rumours. It was funny cause everyone was going “you think she is cute right?” I responded “Yes, I have a set of eyes!” I was unable to finish everything I wanted to do with the first computer I was working on and did not complete everything with the other one by the time that the evening party began at my one friends place. So I left the computers and hung out with everyone until 12 midnight when I came back to Hamilton. Since I have not completed everything I want to complete on the computers, I will be making the trip up this Saturday. I am expecting to be in Guelph every two or three weekends during the upcoming school year. I will be making the trip downtown to buy a bunch of student tickets between Hamilton and Guelph to save some money.
The best news right now is that I am already a week ahead in my classes! The challenge right now is staying ahead, I am allow having a hard time finding time to update my blog… I will work on that this week.

As announced in the Manitoban, students at the University of Manitoba must decide if they want to spend a very large amount of money to be part of the Canadian Federation of Students. The Canadian Federation of Students is a very large organization that is both a corporate entity and a student lobbying group. The first time that I got to hear the pitch for CFS at U of M, I was not impressed. They never did answer the following in my opinion.
The discussion was about the benefits of CFS and whether it was worth the higher costs. The CFS was asked to justify the increased cost of membership to the students of the University of Manitoba. Instead of answering the question, the CFS dodged the question in such as way that even a professional spin-doctor would become dizzy listening to them spin things.
From the Minutes of the UMSU Council Mtg on Jan 27, 2005. Permanlink
Bhamra (UMSU Rep – Commerce):

I am looking at the cost of membership fees between CASA and CFS. I notice our CASA fees are at approximately $42,000/yr and when looking at and calculating the membership for CFS, I come up with a figure of approximately $374,000/yr. That’s a considerable difference in money in membership between the two associations.

Conlon (Canadian Federation of Students Director of Research) replys:

What I think it is important to recognize is that our membership actually won’t cost the student union anything. It sounds like a flippant answer. It’s a fundamental part of the Federation its not that just the student unions that are the members of the federation, it’s each individual member across the country. Each individual member is the reason why we have to have a referendum because each individual student has to make that decision to become part of this organization. It’s a co-operative of all students across the country. That’s why we have services that benefit the members individually and that’s why we believe it’s so important to have equality among our voting members across the country. There is a fundamental difference to say that each member has a voice at the referendum to say I want to reap the benefits of this Federation. I want the services. I want to recognize the political gains we will have by being part of Federation from coast to coast.

Soule (Canadian Federation of Students National Chairman – the top official of CFS):

I’d like to make a point in regards to the Federation’s membership fees and in terms of how it would look to UMSU’s budget bottom line. That amount would not show up as an expense or be reflected as an expense in the budget. The idea is that the referendum is very, very explicit that it’s a separate student levy and it does not affect the UMSU budget. Whereas membership in another organization is a cost directly out of the UMSU budget and is a very distinct budget. In fact, in most student union budgets, the Federation fee is treated the same way as services they use and is not in the sense directly in the budget but they decide where it will show up in services.

While, I am now in my first week of regular session at McMaster and having a great time!
That is all for now… more when I have time!